


Double Tuck and All Four Chambers of Your Heart

by DinosaurTheology



Series: Johnny and Dora [7]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Cute, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Short & Sweet, Sweet, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 15:38:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7112002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinosaurTheology/pseuds/DinosaurTheology
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Amy's really into a guy, she does the double tuck. This is well known. And she loves deeply, like a woman glad to be drowning, with all four chambers of her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Tuck and All Four Chambers of Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> B99 isn't mind but it's adorbs and I love it. Showed the sister Johnny and Dora and needed to write... something. Also feeling sort of secure since I took the EMS job and have the stress of choosing off my back. This connects to the other stories ("Make Three" especially) in the J&D series on here.

She doesn't even realize that it's a thing she does until Rosa mentions it one day when they're en route to a 10-10 at the intersection of Crown and Bedford, near Medgar Evers College. It was back when she was dating Teddy and really, really getting into the guy. This was before the time Amy liked to refer to as "Pilsner's Endless Winter" and things were good verging on great.

"You're like an eighth grader when you like a guy," Rosa said. "An eighth grader with absolutely no chill whatsoever."

Amy's eyes grew wide. "I am not! Am I?" She pursed her lips. "Er, what do you mean?"

"Well, for one thing you flail around like a total dork and giggle a lot. You trip over things and make a fool of yourself and doodle stuff like 'Mrs. Amy Wells' or, weirder, 'Mr. Teddy Santiago' on your notebooks."

"Well, this is 2014," she said. "Maybe he'll want to take my name. I have a great name."

"Your name's fine," Rosa said. "It's the freakiness that isn't. Be careful. You don't wanna terrify the poor dude."

"Terrify?" Amy worked on a particularly boss scoffing noise she'd heard the Captain use while discussing women's issues in the films of Kenji Mizoguchi. It hadn't quite the same effect because her voice, alas, was not nearly deep enough. Still... close enough for government work as her Abuelito used to like saying. "What could I possibly be doing to terrify somebody? Especially somebody like Teddy, a grown ass man working for the NYPD."

"Something dorky like this." She blinked twice, scrunched her eyes shut for a second to drop into character and then emerged an uncomfortably accurate facsimile of Amy Santiago. It was why everyone around the 99 considered her the most valuable detective in undercover situations. Could it have been the years she spent as ballerina learning to express herself through gesture and motion? No one knew and asking seemed dangerous.

"Hey!" Rosa said. "I am Amy and, like, ohmigod you are the greatest guy. I've written a statistical model to prove it. Let's make a pro-con spreadsheet about why we should get married and have thirty babies!"

"I am not that bad," she said. "Am I?"

"I am, like, totally not making any of this up," she said, still Amy.

"Oh puh-leeze. When did I become a Valley Girl?" She remembers resisting, at that moment, an overwhelming urge to say "as if."

"Like, whenever I get super excited and try to be cool and, like, fail super, duper hard," she said. It was amazing how high she could force her voice. Am I really that squeaky? Amy wondered. Whatever.

"And then," Rosa said, forcing back a true giggle that seemed worth the whole performance, "I do this super cute, goofy thing with my hair. I try to brush it back all casual but, like, totally tuck it behind both ears like I'm samurai warrior tying it back before battle or some junk." She demonstrated, her hands off the wheel for an instant. Amy felt a thrill of terror but, well, years of guiding a Yamaha Venture through the busy streets of Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx teach your knees to do things that lesser mortals cannot imagine.

"And that," Rosa went on, herself again, "is why you're gonna want to just calm the fuck down a little bit. I'm not making fun of you or anything--"

"You totally, totally were!"

"Yeah, okay... a little bit. But seriously, mija... Teddy's a good guy, just like you say, even if he is an even bigger nerd than you. And you are..." She struggles with true emotion a moment, frustration with it evident on her beautiful features and the way her strong, slender hands grip the wheel. "You're an all right chick. Don't lose your mind over this. Don't go full Boyle. Charles is a good guy and we love him but... don't ever, ever go full Boyle."

She'd laughed the advice off a little then, offered as it was in a spirit of good natured sarcasm. Rosa, a woman with intensely powerful emotions who did not know how to share them, found herself cotton-mouthed when trying to communicate any other way than this or spectacular, theatrical rage. It was a thing cops did sometimes because feeling hurt too much and not feeling was an even worse idea. Still... something about it prickled at in Amy's midbrain. Although she and Teddy had gotten way too intense too fast, since he shared many of her traits fair and foul, Amy remembered that she should not give the whole of her heart to this man before he proved he would not break it.

He had not proven equal to the task. Perhaps, Amy thinks on occasion, if she'd been a bottle of Pilsner.

Now she sits up in bed beside another guy, her guy, and twirls her fingers in the dark curls that threaten constantly to drift down his forehead and across his eyes. She means to be studying, since that prep book for the NYPD sergeant's exam that Terry gave her won't read itself, and even has her glasses on--the ones that Gina says make her look like a giant insect--but all she wants to study right now are the lines of his face. His sleep is that of the innocent, all deep breaths and a serene little smile, and she cannot tear her eyes away.

It's a good place with him here the room with Die Hard posters on the wall and full collections of Police Academy and Real Ghostbusters action figures (including the famous, hard to find Fearsome Flush) lining shelves on the wall. They're not married, not yet at least, but they get along like a relaxed couple in their fifties--probably from working intimately as partners for so long--but still have the pink, honeymoon flush of new love. There aren't thirty babies, like Rosa had teased her, but there's going to be one, at least, and gosh-darn it that'll be the best baby ever. And won't, she muses, demand Pilsner in its bottle.

She doesn't remember the first time she double tucked when thinking about Jake, or sneaking a secret little glance at him, but that's only because it's a thing she does without thinking just like breathing or loving this man who snores so loudly that it wakes her up at night on occasion. Right? She does it now, secure in the knowledge that it's probably just a way to keep long, errant strands of hair out of her eyes. It doesn't mean anything, never has. She can't be that obvious. How could any cop like that ever work undercover? She is great undercover, especially in the role of an overzealous high school math teacher. And even if it's not, well... that's okay, too. Some things it's okay to do with both hands, both feet, both arms or both legs, all four chambers of your heart. She cuddles against his side, lets her back sink into him like the warmest, sweetest quicksand, and returns to her book. Sergeant Amy Santiago will love with just as much depth as Detective Amy, after all, a new little life will need the money a promotion will bring and those chevrons won't earn themselves.


End file.
